Special report profile: Siegelgale is everywhere

Siegelgale is a company that is difficult to define. It began as a strategic communications consultancy more than 30 years ago. Over the years, the New York-based company has broadened its services to include branding consulting, Web development and advertising.

Siegelgale has worked with top-tier companies, such as 3M Corp., AT&T Corp. and Harley-Davidson. It is the company that named MasterCard and designed the 1040 EZ tax form, one of the few relatively pleasant things about the Internal Revenue Service.

Andrew Zolli, Siegelgale's chief marketing officer, can recite a number of metrics that summarize the company's infiltration into our daily lives.

"We've worked with one in 10 brands in the Fortune 500," he said. "One in three in the Dow Jones Industrial Average... Every day one in two Americans comes into contact with brands we helped create. Every time you use a MasterCard, see the NBA logo, every time you bought something with American Express, it's something we helped create."

About 75% of the work Siegelgale does is in b-to-b, Zolli said. "Our focus is on helping companies create revenue-generation vehicles on the Web," he said.

Siegelgale does this with three different types of clients. First are the Internet entrepreneurs, Zolli said. Among the start-ups Siegelgale has worked with is Lycos. Second are what Zolli calls "intrapreneurs," the people in companies assigned to build new Web businesses within brick-and-mortar operations. And third, Siegelgale helps multinational companies to continue competing on a global level in the age of the Internet.

Zolli says Siegelgale differs from most interactive agencies and Internet professional services simply in the breadth of services it offers: business strategy consulting, brand consulting, Web development and advertising services.

Siegelgale also differs from many other e-services companies, because it is neither publicly traded nor losing money, Zolli said. "We are truly, in the e-services space, unique," he said.